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Saturday, September 1, 2007

Global Warming and China's One Child Policy

U.N. Climate Change Talks went on this week in Vienna and China says that its one child policy has helped the fight against global warming by avoiding 300 million births, the equivalent of the population of the U.S. Beijing says that fewer people means less demand for energy and lower emissions of heat trapping gasses from burning fossil fuels.

Now, I am by far not an expert on climate change. I absolutely DO believe in global warming. And absolutely believe that if we do not do something to try to help avoid further erosion, that maybe not our children's lives, but quite possibly their children's lives will be directly affected by our actions, or lack there of, today.

Tom and I try to live "green". There are many, many more things we could do than we do...but we are making an effort and continue to be aware of the greater impact of our choices and try to make decisions based on this. I drive a hybrid car, we recycle-even though it is not mandatory or particularly even convenient in our community, we have replaced all our light bulbs with fluorescent, we have landscaped to conserve water, we use canvas re-usable bags when shopping-not store plastic shopping bags, etc. If anyone is interested in some suggestions for change they can make, big or small, in their lives here is one of the many websites that offers many suggestions: www.fightglobalwarming.com

But back to China's response in their fight against global warming.....all I can say is.....PLEEEEEZEEE! Could they possibly have given this response with a straight face?! Okay, let me say, I do recognize the theory that less people, less fossil fuel consumption, less effect on the environment. But anyone who has been to China can tell you how horribly polluted the country is. The lack of government regulation, or enforcement of regulations, regarding pollution from corporations in China is notorious. Just look at articles, from any other country than China, that are relating to the Beijing Olympics in 2008-one of the major issues everyone is concerned with is air quality for athletes due to pollution!

Ironic that enforcement of laws regarding population control seem to be more important, and certainly more widely enforced than those of pollution control!